CT Wasn't Luke Skywalker on the Empire's Most Wanted list?

COMMANDER This is a Rebel that surrendered to us. Although he denies it, I
believe there may be more of them, and I request permission to conduct
a further search of the area.

The commander extends his hand, revealing Luke's lightsaber.

COMMANDER He was armed only with this.

Vader looks at Luke, turns away and faces the commander, taking the
lightsaber from the commander's hand.

VADER Good work, Commander. Leave us. Conduct your search and bring his
companions to me.

COMMANDER Yes, my Lord.



So here we have what apparently is a commissioned Imperial officer (with the rank "commander"), yet he obviously fails to recognize that it is Luke Skywalker himself who has surrendered and refers to Luke just as "a Rebel" (so much for the Emperor's claim of an entire legion of his "best men")

It would appear that Luke Skywalker wasn't on the Empire's Most Wanted list, yet, the Imperial officer in ESB seems to recognize that it is Luke Skywalker who has just landed (apparently based on the video feed of Cloud City's security cameras and exclusive information provided by Vader?):

IMPERIAL OFFICER Skywalker has just landed, my
lord.

VADER Good. See to it that he finds
his way here. Calrissian, take
the princess and the Wookiee to
my ship.


And while we don't now whether Cloud City had access to the intergalactic wide web or not (or whether Lando even had an interest to look up the "most wanted") it's also obvious that Lando doesn't have a clue, who it is Lord Vader is after:

LANDO He doesn't want you at all. He's
after somebody called Skywalker.

 

The commander just says: "This is a Rebel". So maybe Luke hasn't given him any name, presenting himself just as "a rebel" (and the commander doesn't see reason to examine him further in the middle of the nighlty forest, while he can presume that Vader will take care to question the prisoner by himself). Adding that probably the Imperial investigation system hasn't a clear picture of Luke (maybe just some low quality camera shots taken in Cloud City), that explains enough why the commander hasn't any idea of whom he arrested, IMHO.

As for Lando, it seems like Cloud City was a place good for people who doesn't want too imperial attention. So, not checking the imperial wanted list was part of Lando's policy to draw such kind of people.
Or maybe Vader hasn't spread Luke's name outside the Executor, until the Emperor tells him to catch Luke. In fact, he pretends not to know who is the "disturbance in the Force". But this is a worth explanation just after some SE, not the original one!

 

Maybe he just mind tricked the officer...? *waves hand* "I am surrendering. You will take me to Lord Vader" and left it at that... You never know...

 

Avnar

That's a good one.

As a matter of fact I never liked Vader's statement just because Luke had assembled a lightsaber:

VADER Your skills are complete. Indeed, you are powerful, as the Emperor has
foreseen.

Assuming that Vader knew that his son had mind tricked an established and experienced Imperial officer, this would add more believability to his "amazement", IMHO.

 

One possibility is that they didn't want some ambitious Imperial officer or some especially gung-ho trooper to try and make a name for themselves by gunning down Public Enemy No. 1. They wanted Luke alive and well and able to be converted to the Sith point of view.

 

Kenneth Morgan

I'm certain that a "Most Wanted" poster would have highlighted in red letters that public enemy Luke Skywalker needed to be captured alive at all costs.

However, there is also the possibility that the PR section of the Galactic Empire didn't want Luke Skywalker to gain more popularity than he already had. Come to think of it, he is the perfect poster boy for the Alliance:

"Young inexperienced farmboy from Tatooine destroyed the Death Star"

(Yet I still prefer the rationalization Avnar suggested)

 

They probably generally knew that SOMEONE named Skywalker was in the Rebel Alliance -- maybe even among the higher chains of command, but beyond that he was just Rebel Scum. Lando's just saying 'Skywalker' because he keeps overhearing that name but has no idea who this person in.

The officer in question probably had orders to take any Rebel Scum™ in for questioning, so that's why he didn't try to kill Luke. Also, even if he DID know Luke's real name, and knew exactly who he had arrested, calling him "Rebel" instead is a way of dehumanizing Luke. Y'know, by not calling him by his real name.

 

This. There is a slight difference between the Emporer and the Empire as a whole. Putting a bulletin out for Luke as the galaxy's #1 wanted man could end in some ambitious soldier possibly harming Luke while he was still figuring out his powers and somewhat vulnerable, maybe even incineration . Those who were alittle bit higher up or had more personal dealings with Vader/ The Emporer probably knew more of Luke's importance, not his bloodline or anything, just that they wanted him alive for their own business, where as most Imperial militia or even citizens probably just got the standard "any rebel is a bad rebel" summary.

 

_Sublime_Skywalker_ wrote

Putting a bulletin out for Luke as the galaxy's #1 wanted man could end in some ambitious soldier possibly harming Luke while he was still figuring out his powers and somewhat vulnerable, maybe even incineration. Those who were alittle bit higher up or had more personal dealings with Vader/ The Emporer probably knew more of Luke's importance, not his bloodline or anything, just that they wanted him alive for their own business, where as most Imperial militia or even citizens probably just got the standard "any rebel is a bad rebel" summary.



Exactly my point, if they wanted him alive any Most Wanted poster should have highlighted that and every Imperial should have been made aware of that.

By not stressing that Luke Skywalker needed to be captured alive, he would have remained just another Rebel soldier to be targeted and shot on sight by every Imperial crossing his path. I don't believe that either Palpatine or Vader was willing to accept the risk of loosing Luke because of a trigger happy Imperial grunt.

 

luke can handle himself against the random stormtrooper and his actions are his own. if he were randomly shot to death by a stormtrooper his destiny must not be so great anyway. also he might not go willingly. he's safer left in obscurity without a wanted poster. and as sith and jedi will be drawn to one another anyway, there will eventually be a confrontation. i don't think that the emperor and vader like to make what they're doing regarding their path in the force public.

 

oncafar wrote

I don't think that the emperor and vader like to make what they're doing regarding their path in the force public.

Of course, but putting Luke on a Most Wanted poster wouldn't remotely suggest that, just to apprehend a known terrorist and make him answer for his crime of killing hundreds of Imperial citizens and destroying an immeasurable amount of Imperial taxpayer's money - from the Empire's point of view, of course.

 

But, typically only rebel soldiers seem to wear uniforms. There might be some secret handshake between rebels, but Luke, Leia and Han didn't wear identifiers of the Rebel alliance. Most people would know Luke's name, but not necessarily what he looked like until way after ROTJ. That's why they ask to see identification in ANH.

 

They asked to see his identification to see whether he was coming from the south and might have been connected to the Lars family, Praji's squad had just murdered.

I'm also certain that this official name was "Luke Lars" to pass him as the child of Owen and Beru. It is not until he meets the princess on the Death Star that we hear for the first time in ANH his real name, i.e. "Luke Skywalker".

 

I know it is not in the films, but in the comics, Han is surprised that Luke has a bigger bounty on his head then he does. I don't recall them saying who placed said bounty though.

 

An Imperial officer might not expect or believe that such a notorious enemy would just walk up to their lines and hand himself over.

You could say that they missed a trick by not having Vader reveal the identity of the commander's prisoner to him and seeing his reaction.

 

He may not have known Luke's exact status in the whole Rebellion chain of command. Besides, if I were that officer and a Rebel willingly offered himself to me in surrender, I'd be a sheering fool to not take the opportunity to arrest him and escort him to a holding cell. It's possible Vader left clear instructions to bring any Rebel to him so that he could question them personally. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume something like this happened:

Commander: "Halt!"

Luke Skywalker: <walks in with hands up> "I mean you no harm, I surrender. It's clear your forces outmatch ours."

Commander: "Are there more like you in the general area?"

Luke Skywalker: "No."

Commander: "Thought you'd say that. All right, you're coming with me." <secures Luke's wrist> "I'll escort you to Lord Vader for questioning."

 

It's also possible that Luke mind-tricked the officer into taking him straight to Vader instead of questioning him personally.

 

Could be possible Palps and Vader kept the knowledge of Luke's existence on a need to know basis. They may not have wanted that there is a new Jedi or would be Jedi running around to be common knowledge.

 

Great question. Agreed with what other people above said about the Sith not wanting the galaxy at large to know Jedi might still exist. Also a lot of things just don't add up in the Star Wars movies or we don't know enough to have a clear picture what's going on.

In a lot of ways we on Earth right now are more technologically advanced than what we saw in the Star Wars universe. Especially it seems when it comes to mass communications. In the movies we have never seen any mass communication broadcasts - like TV shows or even news broadcasts. We see some of that on Rebels, but on the Clone Wars Cartoon it looks like political speeches were replayed on huge public screens. And Saw's resistance fighters on Onderon used public holographic projections to spread the word of what they were doing.

The other things is - the galaxy is huge, much bigger than Earth. Probably very few people other than the Emporer are known everywhere. The Star Wars Universe seems to have as much in common with our modern world as it does Earth during the time of the Roman Empire.

 

I don't think the best legion of imperial troops are going to be in the dark about the rebel that half the fleet were engaged in apprehending during the Empire Strikes Back.

 

Half the fleet? Or four Star Destroyers and a Super Star Destroyer? How many Star Destroyers does the Empire have? The movies don't really tell us. If we go by what we saw on the Clone Wars there are hundreds of them. Also did every person on those four Star Destroyers and One Super Star Destroyer know they are looking for Luke Skywalker, or just the Admiral Ozzel, Piet, Veers, and maybe the other Captains?

Lastly, was the Imperial that found Luke part of the best legion of the Emperor's Troops or an officer in charge of running the defensive shield?